One Shot
by Jonn Wood
Summary: The Avengers all meet in an inn. Post-movie.
1. Chapter 1

Things aren't as pretty  
On the inside  
-**Nine Inch Nails, "Only"**

Back in Steve Rogers' day, someone with a private jet was a test pilot in a one-seater.

Tony poked him.

"Wake up, Cap. Your country needs you. Well, strictly speaking, another country, South of your country needs you. Doesn't matter. Get up."

"Mmph., said Rogers, and turned over. "No more shawarma, Ma..."

"Seriously, Steve, get up. Jeez. Adolf could've taken you outta the war with a glass of warm milk and a teddy bear. C'mon, get up."

Steve stayed down.

Frowning, Stark pulled out his phone, found an audio clip of a gun firing, turned up the volume, and hit play.

Steve's eyes snapped open, and he surged forward in his seat, his left hand reaching for the phone and twisting it out of Tony's grip. His right hand came up toward Tony's sternum in a punch that would certainly have ruined his day and a few of his ribs if Cap hadn't stopped himself an inch away from the cotton of his light David August suit.

"This isn't a gun," Steve said, blinking sleep out of his eyes.

"I know. Most cell phones aren't."

"Sorry. Wasn't there an easier way to get me up?"

Tony opened his mouth, then closed it.

"First things first," said Steve. "Where are we?" He looked out the window and winced at the bright light.

"Mexico. There's a resort, I figured we needed a break".

"I thought we were going to see your dad's grave."

"He's not going anywhere. C'mon, let's go."

Even the Stark Freon-free green air-conditioner couldn't hold off the desert heat, and it started getting oppressive before Steve got halfway to the door. He shucked off his jacket, and left it on the jet.

The heat hit him like a brick to the face.

Tony's disguise, coming off the plane, consisted of a baseball cap and a fake beard. Which didn't seem to be particularly useful, considering that the jet's call sign was "Stark Force Two", but those sorts of little details didn't seem to be the sort of things Tony cared much about.

"_Hola_, Mr. Stark," said the limo driver. The car was red with gold trim, of course. Very inconspicuous.

"_Hola_, Emilio," said Stark, and continued to ask about the driver's kids and home life. Apparently, those were the sorts of little details he _did_ care about.

Steve grabbed some shades someone had left in a seat-back pocket and slipped them on, cutting the desert sunlight to merely blinding.

Stark didn't bother to disguise his height, that classic Stark rooster-strut. It's not like anyone was within a mile of the place anyway, unless they were in the airport proper, but Steve's back still itched with that old sniper-worry. Of course, if someone had wanted to take them out, they probably would just plant a bomb in the car.

Comforting.

"We're on our way to a hotel," Tony said, once they were underway. "All expenses paid. Wine, women, song."

"I can't get drunk, the last girl I was interested in uses a walker, and I don't do karaoke."

"Play Track five. Waitwaitwait - You can't get drunk?" said Stark, with the gleam in his eye of a man facing a challenge that he's about to enjoy. His dad's gleam, in fact.

"No, I can't," said Steve, as Jimmy Buffet's "Margaritaville" started to waft through the limo.

"Maybe you haven't tried hard enough. Maybe you haven't found the right bottle."

"I've tried," Steve said, as his eyes went flat and distant. Oo-kay, obviously a touchy subject. Time to steer back towards safer waters. "Have you considered a haircut? Where do you even find a guy who does hair like that?"

"Brooklyn. I'm pretty sure his daughter has a crush on me. Who does yours?"

"A team of French sty - nah, I'm kidding. I give it to a robot with some clippers."

An awkward silence, over the next mile or so.

"We need to talk. Just two guys, talking. We never get to talk. Always interrupted by work, or alien invasions, or magic sticks that make people fight."

"Okay. Sports. Guys still talk about sports, right?"

"Mostly about steroids and golf players having affairs."

"Back in the day, I liked baseball." Steve held up a hand. "Please, I've heard all the Red Sox jokes."

"I'm more of a Yankees man myself," Tony admitted.

"Are you now?"

Tony nodded.

"Maybe we do have something in common. This place we're going to -"

"Yeah?"

"They got any fondue?"

Turned out they did. It also turned out Romanov had gotten into the vodka.

Steve ordered a Coke, which came in a glass bottle. Thor was working the bar, and it said something about how strange Steve's life had gotten that a demigod serving Mojitos didn't faze him.

He had worked with Russians once or twice. Good people. Hard people. Learning about the Cold War made his head spin, though. It had been fun to waltz into the CIA archives and show them his old security clearances, which were older than the people working there. Since the Strategic Scientific Reserve had become SHIELD, they were somehow still valid. Thank Heaven for American bureaucracy. Steve smiled.

"See?" Tony yelled, about an inch from Steve's ear. You _are_ having fun!"

Steve shook his head. "Still not drunk."

"Well, that's a sha-wait, you're not even _trying_, are you? Give me that!"

"Tony, no!"

"Gimme!"

"Stop it!"

"C'mon, Cap, get hammered! No pun intended-"

"Alright, _fine_!"

"Really?"

"Yes. I'll do my level best to get drunk. Blink, stinking drunk. And it won't work. Do you think Thor can make a...Key Lime Margarita, I think it's called?"

"Good question. Oh _Thooor_!"

Turned out he could. Tony bolted the first one, just by way of taste test, and ordered two more. Then he sent one to Cap's table with the waitress.

"Here you go, _Capitan_."

"Please, call me Steve."

The curvy young lady smiled, blushed, and vanished.

Nice dimples.

Funny thing about the smell in the place; it smelt more or less like every bar he had ever been to. The last time he had a drink was when Bucky died, and that bar had been torn apart by a V2. The only thing left there had been dust, and the few remaining bottles the looters somehow hadn't got to.

And a glass that made the whiskey taste like ashes.

If he closed his eyes, if he ignored the wind rustling at the doors to the pool, he could imagine he was in a New York dive. Or a pub in London. Or a cafe in Paris. It was the smell, that sickly-sweet smell of a thousand spilled beers-

Someone sat in one of the other seats at the table, the one closest to the door, and Steve's eyes snapped open. It was Barton. Hawkeye.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," Steve said.

Barton looked a lot like a regular tourist, even by 40s standards. Shorts, brightly colored t-shirt, tank top, sandals, sunscreen on his nose. The only bad notes were the cell phone pouch on his belt and the dark shades pushed up on his forehead, like some sort of cross between the shades on a Secret Service agent and something a cat might wear.

Except bigger.

"Just wanted to let you know that if you need help dealing with something, anything, you can talk to me, or the SHIELD psychiatrist. Like Phil."

"He was a shrink?"

"No, I mean you can talk to the shrinks about him."

"I'm fine, thanks."

"Really? What did you do after Barnes died?"

"Tried to get drunk and then took Hydra's main base."

"What did you do after Phil died?"

"Fought off those aliens."

"And what," Barton took a sip of his Bud. "Are you doing now?"

"This was Tony's idea."

"And you went along with it? Trust me Rogers, I know. You're hurting." He reached forward, patted Steve on the knee. "Talk to someone."

"And you? Any problems with Loki putting the Jedi Mind Trick on you?"

"Yeah, but I'm okay, more or less." He stared past Steve with a funny look on his face, and the New Yorker turned to see Romanov at the bar. "Been thinking about some things."

"Well, I certainly can't fault your taste."

"I'm not sure anyone could." He picked up Steve's bottle cap, and stood up. He was a few feet away when Steve asked "Does Tony...ever talk about Phil?"

"Something about starting a foundation."

"Good. That's good."

Barton smiled, turned his back to Steve, and tossed the bottle cap over his shoulder. It cleared Steve's head, bounced off the rim of his Coke bottle, and landed neatly in the ashtray.

"I used to hustle people out of their beer money back in college. Later." And he headed back toward the bar.

Their cover, such as it was, was pretty well blown. Tony had a...distinctive way of partying, Thor stood out, Romanov was a very loud drunk, and - Steve looked down at his clothes - he wasn't exactly inconspicuous either. How many six foot blond-blue eyed men in 40s clothing were there in the world, anyway? A fair amount, really, but he was the only one who had been in the papers, and he still didn't know what a "hipster" was.

Bruce sat down in the same chair Barton had just left, wearing nothing but a bathrobe, and he was dripping wet under it.

"Hi."

"Hi. Um."

"Oh. Sorry." And Banner closed his legs.

"Thanks. Been for a swim?"

"Yeah."

Steve waited for it.

"In the ocean."

"Which is , I don't know, about three miles from here?"

"Yeah, I kinda had to walk back."

"Naked?"

"I just acted like another lost tourist, they stuffed me in a cab, and the valet paid when I got here. I said I had gotten drunk and blacked out and woke up in the ocean."

"What'd he say?"

"'Ah. A guest of _Senor_ Stark.'"

Widow had started to babble in Russian. And English. And French. And maybe a little Urdu. When Steve looked back, she had an arm curled around Barton's neck, making little smoochy noises, and he was fending her off. But not with any particular enthusiasm.

Banner raised his Corona. "To young love."

"Young? He's fifteen years older than I am. She is. You know what I mean."

"Details."

"They brought a Russian in to tell me how to drink, you know. They had trainers for everything, any spare moment. Strategy, tactics, sentry elimination, social something-something."

"Social engineering?"

"Something like that. How to make people like you. Or hate you, if you needed to. Useful if you needed them too ticked off to think."

"Heh. I learned how to not piss off guys in every language around the world."

"Does it always work?"

"No. It's really hard not to go Green when you know, for a fact, that you could flatten the guy shoving you around. And probably the whole block. I got messed with a lot in school, so...bad memories."

"You too?"

"Yeah, I wasn't the biggest guy. Still aren't. Most of the time."

"I kept having my head handed to me by jerks. Never liked a bully. Even if they weren't bothering me, I'd still jump in."

"What've you been up to lately, anyway?"

"Been watching DVDs. I finally saw Star Wars, all six of 'em. Good stuff. I don't know why they didn't just have MacGregor play old Obi-Wan."

Bruce blinked. "Wait, what?"

"Obi-Wan. He was played by Ewan MacGregor in the first three movies, then they got Alec Guinness to play the old version. Why didn't they just put MacGregor in old man makeup?"

Bruce closed his mouth with a sharp click. He put his drink down on the table, very carefully.

"Steve," he said. "When you were looking at the credits, did you look at the copyright dates?"

Rogers looked puzzled. "No. Why would that matter?"

Bruce stood, and drained his bottle. "Give me a minute, this is a two-bottle problem."

Turned out Thor was surprisingly good at mixing drinks. Even with an appletini in one hand, he still managed to pour out Bruce's Lonely Man.

"How'd you get so good at drinks? Not exactly what I'd call part of the Norse God skillset."

"Father spent time on Earth once. He managed to live as a barkeep for five months in your San Francisco during your 80s.. Of course, he had both eyes then, and had to keep telling people he was not romantically available." He somehow managed to flip the bottle around his bicep while looking mildly disturbed at the thought of people hitting on his dad. Clearly, some things were universally constant. "He taught me after I returned, should I ever find myself on Earth and powerless again."

"How did you do that flippy-thing?"

"It's easy, compared to a sword."

"That come up often, in Asgard?"

"More than you'd think."

"Thanks."

"Ahem."

"What? Stark's paying for this."

"_Ahem_." Thor gestured toward the tip jar.

"Oh for-_seriously_?"

"I jest not." The god of Thunder raised an imperious eyebrow.

Bruce dug into his pocket, muttering something darkly about how this crap was irritating, tossed a ten in, and went back to the table in something of a snit, Steve's second Coke in his other hand.

"Oh, wait, the cap's still on. I can just-huh. Do you always take the cap off without a bottle opener?"

"Only when I'm too lazy to get up. _Salud_."

"_Salud_."

Explaining Star Wars took a while. Diagrams were involved. Steve had the natural ability to assess a battlefield instantly, but he had trouble wrapping his brain around the concept of "prequels". Then Bruce accidentally mentioned the tie-in books, games, and suchlike, and Steve wanted to know about that too. More diagrams. By the time they were done, they were both very confused.

"Okay," said Steve. "Okay. And people remember this all the time?"

"Nobody remembers all of this stuff. Not even George Lucas. Everyone just looks it up on a wiki."

"What's a wiki?"

Bruce was saved from an explanation which would have eventually required a whiteboard by Tony coming out of nowhere and draping his hand across his shoulders in the chummy fashion common to people who are drunk.

"Hey!" said Tony, and gathered his thoughts. "Hey..." he gathered his thoughts. "Hey!...Bruce!"

"You're drunk, Tony," Steve pointed out.

"Really? _Really?_ And I just thought I was drunk. Look, I want to sell your hands."

"Um."

"Not your hands. The Hulk. His hands. I want to take the Hulk's hands, and sell them. I don't want to cut them off, I just wanna, wanna _sell_ them."

"You're talking toys," said Bruce, with his international experience in speaking Drunk Guy.

"'Zactly. Then I slip you a li'l something under the table. Like a dog. Except no. No, not a dog. C'mon. Made a mockup outta chewing gum. C'n even make it say stuff. My jaw hurts."

And off Bruce went, with a look at Steve, who merely raised his glass with a smile and a raised eyebrow.

"Sorry, pal, you're on your own."

And that was the end of the drink. And a few seconds later, the end of his Coke too. Steve got another one, and had just sat back down when -

"_Cap_? Captain America?"

"Well, you found me, Sherlock. Good job."

The complete stranger stepped back. "If this is a bad time..."

"No, it's just..." Steve sighed. "Sorry. Can I help you?"

"No, I just wanted to meet you." He stuck out a hand. "Steve Jones Junior, New Orleans."

Steve took it. "Steve Rogers, Brooklyn."

"You served with my grandpa-"

"Wait, wait a second..." Steve stared at the young man in front of him. Judging by his skin and features, he was at least partially black- "_Gabe_? You're Gabe's grandson?

"Yeah."

"How is he?"

"He, uh, moved on."

Steve's smile faded. "I'm sorry."

'Why? You didn't kill him. He used to talk about you all the time. Said you were the best man he ever knew, hence the name. Where you been, anyway?"

"Classified."

"Have anything to do with your new team?" Jones gestured at the other Avengers.

"Also classified."

"I get it. Still, good job at grand Central. It's been an honor to meet you, sir." He tossed some money onto the table. "When they sober up, tell the other guys thanks." He tossed a few bills onto the table. "Your drink's on me."

Steve smiled at Jones as he left, wondering if Gabe picked up his future wife speaking French to the girls in the French Quarter. Then Tony smacked his hands down on the table, startling Steve for, what, the third time today?

"All right, I got Banner out of the way. Let's go."

"Let's go..._where_?"

"Got you your fondue. C'mon."

"But what about the Hulk's hands?" Steve said as Tony dragged him away, clearly not as drunk as he had been acting.

"Bruce is thinking about it. I hope he says yes, 'cause I already started making them a month ago. In here."

He swiped his key-card over the plate in the wall, then shoved Steve in ahead of him.

There wasn't much light in the room. There was a window, yes, but thick curtains were drawn across it, only letting light in around the edges.

"Oh, right," Tony said. "Left my cell phone at the bar. Be right back."

"Why are the lights out?" Steve said, but Tony was already gone. As his eyes adjusted, he saw the table and-

It was the cute waitress. There was a fondue-thing and soft lighting and little toothpicks and forks and _she wasn't wearing any clothes_-

She was smiling at him. Still had nice dimples. Nice everything, really.

"Um," said Steve.

Her smile faltered.

"_Esteban_?" she said, uncertainly.

Steve swallowed, and reached for the door.

Tony had locked it behind him.

* * *

Chapter 2 coming soon.


	2. Chapter 2

WARNING: This chapter contains a horrible pun. You have been warned.

* * *

Clint Barton woke up in his hotel room, which wasn't much of a surprise, and with the other half of the bed occupied by a certain Russian redhead, which was.

But not very much.

He checked his watch, then, as he had been trained, worked his way through his memories from the last major thing he could remember -

Wow.

He scanned the room. Yep, there was the ring binder, a dollop of mayo still on its spine. And the inflatable animals with which they had had the cutest, squeakiest pillow fight ever. A few empty glasses with their contents staining the expensive carpet. Clint winced; that was probably coming out of Stark's pocket. 'Course, it was a big pocket -

Red stirred.

Clint reached into the bedside table, ignored the bilingual bible and notepad, and grabbed the ballpoint pen. He tossed it up and down a few times, getting a feel for it, then hurled it at the window shade, which obligingly rose up just enough to let just enough light in to pick out Nat's highlights.

He watched her for a while.

"This is your room, right?" she said, without moving. "I mean, we didn't knock out some poor guy and take all their stuff? Because that's always such an explanation."

"Uh...no. My room."

"Good." Red was facing the window, and he couldn't see her face. "Have you seen my underpants? I mean, I'm enjoying the high thread count, but I'm going to have to leave eventually."

Clint raised the sheets. "I think I'm wearing it. No, wait, this is a size too small." He squinted through the sleepy haze, as a memory struck him. "Am I the only one in this room who remembers...an elephant?"

"There's a stone one in the courtyard." Natasha raised her head and peered out the window, wincing at the bright sunlight. "Ah. There they are."

"You going to rescue them?"

"No, that's a high-risk extraction." Her head flopped back down. "I'll pay you twenty bucks."

"I've had lunches that cost more than that."

"Twenty-five bucks."

"And we're in Mexico."

"Twenty-five pesos."

"Two bucks?"

He heard the smile in her voice. "You were the one who suggested it."

Barton sighed, and something struck him. He raised the sheets again. "I think I'm wearing this thong backward."

"Mmm."

"Why does it have an eagle eating a snake?"

"It's part of the Coat of Arms, and the flag."

"Huh. Speaking of birds, isn't it weird how they send a guy called 'Hawkeye' out to catch the 'Black Widow'? What's with the animal names? Why didn't they send Falcon?"

"I'm not sure what good Sam's flying suit could've done against me. They needed Spy vs. Spy, if you get my drift."

"They could've sent Songbird,."

"She probably would've killed me. And anyone else on the block."

"Ah. So, all things considered, good thing it was me."

Her arm snaked across his chest, for a non-awkward side-hug. "Good thing."

And that was when the door to the bedroom opened and Tony stark walked in with a tray.

"Morning," said he. "Here's breakfast."

Both agents sat up.

"Tony, what are you doing in here?" said Clint.

Funny. A week ago, he hadn't been on a first name basis with any billionaires.

"Bringing you breakfast. I asked Fury, he said you both like poached eggs and ham."

"No, I mean, why are you, specifically, bringing us breakfast we never ordered -"

"And orange juice."

"_Ton_y."

"I...kind of bought the hotel. So anything you like, put it on my tab."

"What if I ask for a Ferrari?"

"Okay, so almost anything you like." Stark put down the tray he was carrying.

"Don't eat the eggs," Natasha said quickly. "He's not very good at them."

"I didn't make it. This isn't my breakfast-making suit."

"What, does it have a light on the chest shaped like an egg?" Barton's brain had woken up enough to start being sarcastic, so he clearly wasn't getting back to sleep.

"Heh. That's funny. Really funny," Stark said with a forced smile. "No, but that's a good idea. I'll call it the Waffle Iron Man suit."

Red buried her head under a pillow with a groan. "I am going to kill you in your sleep."

"What's that, Agent Romanov? Do my jokes put you in a _black_ mood?"

Nat groaned.

"Don't start, Tony. She'll be in a snit all day."

"I had no idea little Miss super-spy was so vulnerable to puns. Next thing you know she'll be _Russian_ out the door just to get away."

"You will open your eyes at three AM," Nat promised, "and the last thing you see will be a redhead with a pillow."

"Kinky. But I already have one"

"Technically, she's more of a strawberry blonde," Barton noted.

"Close enough."

"By the way, did you see what happened to Steve yesterday?"

"I locked him in a room with a naked waitress so they could eat fondue together. And no, that's not some kind of innuendo."

"You did what?" both SHIELD agents said.

"Tony, that's-"

"_Stark_," Natasha rolled right over Clint, and he winced. Using his last name, and in That Voice; not good. "_Explain_."

Tony took a step back.

"Okay, I noticed Steve flirting with one of the waitresses at the bar."

"Cute, hispanic, shoulder-length hair, curvy, nice dimples," Clint chimed in.

Nat eyebrowed at him.

"What? Red, there's nothing wrong with liking girls who are closer to pears than string beans-_mmph_."

"Is that some sort of secret Russian pillow-fighting technique?"

"No, I think I just pissed her off."

"Out," Natasha ordered. "Out of the bed. Out, out, _out_."

"All right," Clint said, and threw off the covers.

Tony winced, closed his eyes. "Barton, I don't like you that way. We're at shwarma-level. Maybe kebabs. Nothing more. Also, _puce_? Really?"

Clint grabbed a pillow and held it in front of himself. "Better?"

"Much. Though I wish you'd grabbed the blanket."

Natasha's hands curled into a death grip on the bedclothes, and her green eyes glared at Barton. "Hawk, I know where you live. I know exactly when you reach the deepest point in REM sleep. I own a lot of sharp pointy things, and have access to experimental weapons on a daily basis. _Don't touch these sheets_."

"Is she always this grumpy in the morning?" Tony asked.

"She wasn't before you showed up," said Clint. "Can you see my pants? Or _any_ pants?"

"Well, there's those."

"Those actually cover _less_ than the thong."

"And they're teal."

"I can handle teal, as long as they cover a decent amount. Close your eyes, I'm going to break for the closet."

"Duly warned. And you'd just go out in any old pants?"

"I figure they're used to strange rich guests walking down the hall. How often do you come here?"

"Well, this is May so _- hey_!"

"What did you do to Rogers?" Natasha demanded.

"Ooh, goal-oriented."

"_Stark_."

"Okay, okay. Steve isn't exactly the most direct sort, so I figured he might need a little help."

"I see where this is going," said Clint from behind the closet door. "If this were a sitcom, hilarity would be about to ensue. Since this is real life, lawsuits might be about to ensue."

"Nope, no one's suing me," Tony said, rubbing his cheek. "Anyway, I told 'Nita that Steve wanted a little funtime with her."

"Who?"

"The waitress."

"Hence the nakedness and fondue," Nat prompted.

"Right. Then I told him that there was some fondue waiting for him in the room."

If Clint wasn't pulling on his jeans, he would've cupped his face in his hands. "You _didn't_. Stark, tell me you didn't."

"I locked them in. Figured he'd want a little privacy."

"When did Juanita slap you?" Natasha asked.

"How did you -"

Natasha gave Tony one of her crooked, mischievous little smiles, and made a kind of magician's assistant "ta-da" gesture that somehow kept the sheets covering everything important.

"Right, trained super spy, powers of observation, Sherlock Holmes in a catsuit, I get it." Tony sighed. "Well, apparently Steve explained the situation to her. Then he gave her his shirt, and they just talked for a while. Then she dressed and used her keycode to open the door. _Then_ she found me and slapped me."

"But what happened to Cap?" Hawkeye asked, pulling on a bright yellow Aloha shirt.

"He found me and did that thing he does, where he explains how disappointed he is in you, and how he understands you were trying to do the right thing, and hopes you don't do it again. What's it called, what's it called -"

"Maturity."

"Yes. That's it. I'm not sure why he had such a problem with it."

"He's Christian, Tony."

"And? My mom was Catholic, and -"

"Yes, we all know how your parents met. I don't mean a modern Christian. I mean Christian by 40s standards. He even goes to the same church he used to."

"'Cept there's a gay couple down the bench," Clint noted.

"Lex and Joe. Investment and Construction."

"There's a ten year gap in their ages, but they don't care."

"Great interior decorator, some nice rugs."

"Really good coffee."

"What, did you two _spy_ on them?"

Clint and Natasha stared at Tony.

"Right. Stupid question. Wait, do they think..."

"What would you think?" Clint said. "If you didn't know that he got stuck in an iceberg back when Adolf was goose-stepping? Good looking, clean-cut, dresses in a certain way..."

"That _would_ explain what happened today..."

"Or maybe he just didn't want to sleep with her."

Tony gave what would've been a winning, convincing smile if it hadn't been directed at an intelligence operative who had already profiled him and had the equivalent of a master's in psychology.

Clint wasn't too convinced either.

"C'mon, Agent, he hung out with Barnes and, more importantly, my dad. Two of the biggest skirt-chasers in the Allies. Are you telling me that they didn't rub off on him?"

"No pun intended," Clint said.

"Don't encourage him, Barton."

Nat was remarkably in control of the situation for being the only one in the room not wearing any clothes.

"Look," said Stark. "I know Steve's old-fashioned, but he can't be _that_ old-fashioned. Maybe he doesn't like to do it on the first date, is all."

Natasha looked at Tony for a few seconds, her mouth open like she was about to say something, but she couldn't quite find the words.

"Tony -"

She tried again.

"Stark, I -"

Out of steam again.

Then she picked up a pillow, covered her face with it, and screamed into it in inarticulate rage, until she realized Clint had a hand around her waist, and was giving her that sideways headbutt thing.

"Red," he said softly, "Find a different angle."

She breathed deeply.

"Okay. Okay."

One more breath.

"Tony...did your dad tell you about the fondue incident?"

"With Major Carter? Yeah, it was funny, he told it at parties all the time. He didn't realize that Carter was practically throwing herself at him-oh. Oh. _Oh crap_."

Nat said something in Russian. "Tony Stark, you are a very smart idiot."

"Yeah." Tony was looking at the floor. "I messed up, didn't I?"

Clint made a pinching gesture . "_Juuust_ a little."

"I think I need to go find Steve. And buy him a house or something."

"That's not really a reliable way to solve problems, Tony."

"What happened to Steve?" Natasha was leaning into Clint with her eyes clothed, as if she'd need heavy-duty cuddling to deal with Tony's stupidity.

"He went to meet 'Nita's parents for dinner. I'm pretty sure she wants to marry him now."

"Does he know that?" Clint asked.

Tony grinned. "No. Well, I'll leave you two to eat your cold eggs and orange juice. Oh, and I included a splash of vodka in one."

"Which one?"

"It's a surprise. Well, bye. Oh, wait, what's the binder for? Please tell me that's whipped cream."

"Mayo."

"Now I'm even more confused."

"You use it to grease the spine, then you fold it up into a V shape, use it as a chute, like a slide."

"What would you slide down it? I mean, it can't be something like, I dunno, grapes. I've had grapes with mayo. They do _not_ taste good. So what was it?"

"Well -"

* * *

Her parents had insisted he stay in their guest room, and he didn't want to refuse. Wouldn't be polite. Juanita and her parents had talked long into the night, and while his Spanish was spotty - not to mention seventy years out of date - he heard them talk a lot about something that sounded a lot like "union". He hoped they weren't going to ask him to intervene in some kind of labor trouble.

He owned the gym back in Brooklyn. He had bought the place entirely out of his own money; turned out that his War Bonds had matured nicely. Sometimes he just went up on the roof with a sketchpad (who was paying ten bucks for a tiny black sketchbook anyway?), looked around, and just drew. Most modern gyms had fancy black machines with pointless blinking lights. What happened to just running around the block?

But a pencil, paper, a street, and good lighting. Wasn't much the world could do to that.

He shifted the chair under him, flipped to a fresh page, and started sketching left-handed, just for a little variety. Behind him, he heard the screen door open, the clink of ice in a glass. Two glasses, actually, one of which was placed on the table in front of him, followed by a pair of arms circling around him and a peck to the cheek. The other glass she carried to her seat opposite him, her back to the sun.

Juanita wanted to become an professional artist, but was hoping she could find someone to pay her way into an American college. She was a good artist; she'd shown Steve some of her oils and she had a bit of a Monet thing going on. She was also entirely unafraid to criticize his free caricatures of the neighbourhood kids, and had a sort of cheery playfulness hiding her massive amounts of moxie. Interesting contrast. Honestly, after the way she had slapped Stark, he had decided it wasn't worth it to rub it in. Not that he would've anyway. 'Course not.

She took a swig of her limeade, the sun sparkling in the glass.

She also liked Lana Del Rey, whoever that was, and her favorite color was apricot.

Nita's glass hit the glass table with a clink. She reached up and pulled out her hair tie, shaking it out so it fell around her shoulders in soft waves that the sun caught and turned to a halo.

Steve was dimly aware that he had stopped drawing. Didn't seem important, right then.

"_Esteban_," she said in that accent of hers, the one that made Steve think of dancing. "Draw me like one of your French girls."

Steve blinked, cleared his throat, tried to get his brain out of neutral.

"I don't get it," he said.

**THE END**


End file.
